1.1. He solves the mystery of the torpedo fish (and the shock without a spark). He decided to make his own artificial fish. Both the real and the fake Torpedo Fish gave-out electric shocks, but the actual fish never emitted a spark. In 1773, Cavendish tried to figure-out what was going on. He concluded there is a difference between the amount of electricity and its intensity. The real fish produced less-intense electricity. “The amount of electricity” is now called the electric charge and its “intensity” is now known as the potential difference, or voltage.
2. Giovanni Aldini
2.1. He published a highly influential book that reported experiments in which the principles of Luigi Galvani (animal electricity) and Alessandro Volta (bimetallic electricity) were used together for the first time. Aldini used Volta's bimetallic pile to apply electric current to dismembered bodies of animals and humans; these spectacular galvanic reanimation experiments made a strong and enduring impression on his contemporaries. Aldini also treated patients with personality disorders and reported complete rehabilitation following transcranial administration of electric current. Aldini's work laid the ground for the development of various forms of electrotherapy that were heavily used later in the 19th century.
3. Alessandro Volta
3.1. He found that animal tissue was not needed to produce a current. That provoked much controversy between the animal-electricity adherents and the metallic-electricity advocates, but, with his announcement of the first electric battery in 1800, victory was assured for Volta. Known as the voltaic pile or the voltaic column, Volta’s battery consisted of alternating disks of zinc and silver (or copper and pewter) separated by paper or cloth soaked either in salt water or sodium hydroxide. A simple and reliable source of electric current that did not need to be recharged like the Leyden jar, his invention quickly led to a new wave of electrical experiments.
4. Luigi Alosio Galvani
4.1. He built an instrument in which a frog’s nerve was attached to an electrode of one metal, and an electrode of a different metal was attached with the frog muscle. He was well aware of the fact that an animal body made convulsive movements when electricity was applied to it. which he termed "animal electricity." He believed this to be a third form of electricity—a view that wasn’t altogether uncommon in the 18th century.
5. Benjamin Franklin
5.1. He proposed the Kite Experiment. He attached a long wire to a kite made of silk. He used it to draw electricity from storm clouds and charge a Leyden Jar. Through his experiments, he proved that storm clouds carried electricity and lightning was nothing but a heavily charged spark of electricity. This was a path breaking discovery of his times because in those days thunder storms and lightning strikes caused widespread damage to wooden structures.
6. Thomas-François Dalibard and Georges-Louis Leclerc
6.1. He translated Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity into French, performed Franklin's proposed experiment using a 40-foot-tall metal rod at Marly-la-Ville on 10 May 1752. It is said that Dalibard used wine bottles to ground the pole, and he successfully extracted electricity from a low cloud. It is not known whether Franklin ever performed his proposed experiment. They are also the ones who use the terms positive and negative charge.
7. Pieter Van Musschenbroek
7.1. He designed the Leyden Jar where he discovered how to store electricity or in other words, he invented the first capacitor.
8. Stephen Gray
8.1. He discovered that electricity can flow. He also first made the distinction between conduction and insulation through the use of ropes, glass, ceramic, metals from his experiment.
9. Francis Hauksbee
9.1. In the early 1700s, he designed an electrostatic generator, an electromechanical generator that produces static electricity.
10. Michael Faraday
10.1. He was the first to produce an electric current from a magnetic field, invented the first electric motor and dynamo, demonstrated the relation between electricity and chemical bonding, discovered the effect of magnetism on light, and discovered and named diamagnetism, the peculiar behaviour of certain substances in strong magnetic fields.
11. Nikola Tesla
11.1. He demonstrated a device he constructed known as the "Egg of Columbus." It was used to demonstrate and explain the principles of the rotating magnetic field model and the induction motor. Tesla's Egg of Columbus performed the feat of Columbus with a copper egg in a rotating magnetic field.
12. William Sturgeon and Joseph Henry
12.1. worked together to create the world's first telegraph, electromagnet and the electric motor
13. Hans Christian Oersted
13.1. discovered that a magnetic needle aligns itself perpendicularly to a current-carrying wire, definite experimental evidence of the relationship between electricity and magnetism.
14. Samuel Morse
14.1. contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs.
15. Wildman Whitehouse
15.1. insisted on using high voltage induction coils.
16. Thomas Alva Edison
16.1. innovate the practical incandescent electric bulb
17. Joseph Swan
17.1. invented incandescent light bulb with carbon filaments
18. Humphry Davy
18.1. built the world's largest battery which started "The Era of Electricity"; generated electric light bulb with two carbon rods.
